New Yorkers share their tips for finding baby formula as shortage moves toward its fourth month

Many New York City parents say they have had to get creative to secure baby formula for their children, relying on word of mouth, social media and family and friends while waiting out a national shortage.

It’s been more than three months since federal officials linked a bacterial outbreak to Abbott Nutrition, forcing a voluntary recall of its major formula products and precipitating the national crisis. Abbott is one of four brands in control of 90% of the baby formula market in the U.S., according to NPR.

Patricia Grisafi, who lives in the East Village, said she first started having trouble finding formula for her seven-month-old daughter in April. By mid-May, she was getting nervous and consulted with parents at her local playground. They told her about a Facebook group that allowed people to send each other cans.

She said she was wary of online scams — something New York officials have also warned about. The New York Department of Health has directed those struggling to find formula to contact their local WIC office for assistance, while state Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have taken action to try to stop price gouging.

But despite her concerns, Grisafi was somewhat desperate. She said she is unable to breastfeed because she stopped producing milk, and she was also looking for a hypoallergenic brand because her daughter had rejected other kinds of formula.

“I would say we go through a small can every three days,” Grisafi said. “She's a big eater.”

She posted a request for help on her Instagram and Facebook feeds, opting to rely on people in her own network. Grisafi said a high school friend in Rockland County saw the specialty brand in the grocery store and sent her two cans. Then Grisafi called her parents who lived nearby to visit the same store and they purchased a few more, although there was a limit per customer. A friend in California shipped her a can, as did an ex-boyfriend. She said she wasn’t looking for more than she needs but now has a three-month supply.

Other New Yorkers have turned to Lucy Riles, a Nashville resident who runs a Facebook page called Life of Mom with more than 425,000 followers. Usually, Riles posts memes and videos that she thinks moms will find relatable. When Riles found out about the shortage, she wanted to pivot her page to finding formula but was also concerned about people scamming each other online. So she decided to do the vetting herself.

Over the past couple of weeks, Riles says about 1,300 people have emailed her searching for formula, and she has been working to connect them with people in other states where the shelves aren’t as bare. Riles said she receives monetary donations as well and often covers the cost of buying the formula, the shipping or both. She just asks that the person sending the formula shows her a picture of the shipping receipt and tracking number first.

She has recently started posting photos taken by grateful parents of infants surrounded by cans of formula.

“I started to notice a trend where there are certain states where there is a plethora of formula available and fully stocked inventory of baby formula, and then there's this plethora of states where they are completely out,” said Riles, noting that New York is among the states where she has been getting a lot of requests.

According to federal data, New York consistently ranks in the top five states in terms of total births per year. In 2020, the latest year with numbers, New Yorkers had more than 209,000 newborn mouths to feed. New York wasn’t among the states hardest hit by the formula shortage as of last week, according to a Bloomberg report. But about 69% of stores were out of stock.

Toni Mieses, a new mom who lives in Washington Heights, said she has eschewed social media in favor of having hawk-eyed family members keep a look out for formula around the city. Initially, Mieses used a Walmart brand her pediatrician recommended. But about six weeks ago, the store stopped allowing online purchases, and Mieses didn’t have a Walmart nearby.

She switched to a Target brand, but had a similar problem.

“I would say about a month ago, that's when it really started dwindling on the shelves,” Mieses said.

Now her daughter takes Enfamil, a brand Mieses’ mom was able to find in a supermarket in East Harlem, near her work. She said her mom, grandmother and stepfather have been on the lookout for the formula in other stores and have asked their local supermarkets to set aside cans for them.

“So I feel a little bit more confident now,” Mieses said.

While some babies require specialty formulas, in most cases it’s OK for healthy babies to switch formula brands, said Dr. Andrea Deierlein, a nutritional and reproductive epidemiologist at the NYU School of Public Health.

“There just might be a little bit of a transitional period,” she said. “But formulas are very highly regulated in terms of what ingredients they have to have in them. So if you're just comparing formulas in terms of the vitamins and minerals and the different nutrient composition, they are very similar.”

Still, the formula shortage is having real consequences for children’s nutrition. Pediatrician Dr. Taisha Benjamin serves as chief medical officer for the Community Healthcare Network, which operates clinics for low-income patients across the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

Benjamin said one of her patients was taking Similac NeoSure, a brand for premature babies that delivers more calories than regular formula. The brand was not recalled, but still became hard to find due to the squeeze. The child’s mother switched to regular formula as a result.

“The baby may not gain enough weight,” Benjamin said, “but something is better than nothing.”

Benjamin said her clinics encourage breastfeeding and even offer pregnant patients breast pumps when they’re in their third trimester. But she said many opt to use formula because they have to go back to work soon after giving birth.

“I think a lot of it just has to do with the time that it takes to breastfeed,” she said.

Benjamin said her clinics are directing parents to resources for finding formula such as the WIC program. They’ve also started distributing handouts warning patients against diluting formula with water or making their own.

Deierlein cautions parents against experimenting with homemade formula recipes, some of which have been circulating online, because a little mistake with balancing the nutrients can be dangerous for an infant.

“Formula is made to really mimic breast milk as best we can” in order to get babies the right balance of vitamins and nutrients, Deierlein said. “You can imagine it would be very hard to replicate that in a homemade formula.”

She said, for example, an infant’s kidneys are still developing and they could be overloaded if they get too much protein or sodium.

Within the past few weeks President Joe Biden has finally put plans in motion to address the shortage, that includes securing shipments of formula from Europe, working with Abbott to reopen the plant it had to close in Michigan and invoking the Defense Production Act to increase the production of baby formula.

These efforts may yield results soon, but in the meantime, the situation is still getting worse.

Benjamin said she is encouraged by Biden’s efforts to replenish the formula supply but said she wishes the government had acted faster. She said she first started hearing from parents that they were having trouble finding formula for their infants in late March.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of followers of the Life Of Mom Facebook group.